Less Than Ideal

Summary:

Laura never has much luck with men. Her latest idea is not going to improve matters. (Implied Brittas/Laura and actual Laura/Rimmer).

Notes:

One of those times when I found myself writing something I would never write just to work out how I would write it if I did...

Work Text:

“Can I borrow him for a minute?” asked Laura, pointing at Rimmer.

Lister looked to see if anyone else was nearby instead. “Him? What would you want him for?”

“A word or two before you all leave,” said Laura, her mouth setting in a line that boded no good for Rimmer.

Lister shrugged. “Hey, Rimmer. You heard the lady.”

*

Laura led the man who looked exactly like Gordon Brittas (but with marginally better hair, arguably less taste in clothes, and who was apparently a dead hologram from several million years in the future who was temporarily mislaid with the rest of his crew) into the office. She shut the door.

“If this is about Lister’s complete lack of hygiene and habit of wondering into the female changing rooms, I’ve spoken to him about him, but he won’t listen -.”

Laura faced him. “Look, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. And from what I do know, you seem to be a weaselly git, and a coward.”

She raised her eyebrows, but ploughed on. “However, here we both are, and you at least seem to have some intelligence, you actually hear what I say, and you can comprehend sarcasm.”

Rimmer coughed, but brightened. As far as conversations with genuine, live females went, this one wasn’t going badly. To tell the truth, when it came to conversations with attractive females who were human, alive and not a hallucination it was possibly the best he’d ever had.

“And this is a bad, bad idea, I know,” Laura continued. “I know. But the thing is, if I have this right, any minute now you’re going to run off a billion light years and a million years or so into the future, and I’m never going to see you again. So it’s not as if it’ll come back to haunt me. Other than the inevitable nightmares. Seems like the ideal chance to get it out of my system.”

“Ah,” said Rimmer, backing away a step or two, as he worked it out. She seemed sane, but clearly she was in fact crazy. That explained her talking to him, rather than storming out, or slapping him. “I think I heard someone calling -.”